Harvard Business Manager

About Michael E. Porter

Michael E. Porter is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School. A university professorship is the highest professional recognition that can be awarded to a Harvard faculty member. A leading authority on company strategy, the competitiveness of nations and regions, and strategic approaches to societal problems, Professor Porter's work is widely recognized in governments, corporations, non-profits, and academic circles across the globe. A sought after teacher, he also chairs Harvard Business School's program for newly appointed CEOs of multi-billion dollar corporations.

Experience

Professor Porter's core field is competition and company strategy. He is generally recognized as the father of the modern strategy field, and his ideas are taught in virtually every business school in the world. Professor Porter's work has also re-defined thinking about competitiveness, economic development, economically distressed urban communities, environmental policy, and the role of corporations in society.

Recently, Professor Porter has devoted considerable attention to understanding and addressing the pressing problems in health care delivery in the United States and other countries. His book, Redefining Health Care (with Professor Elizabeth Teisberg), develops a new strategic framework for transforming the value delivered by the health care system, with implications for providers, health plans, employers, and government, among other actors. The book received the James A. Hamilton award of the American College of Healthcare Executives in 2007 for book of the year. His New England Journal of Medicine research article, "A Strategy for Health Care Reform—Toward a Value-Based System" (June 2009), lays out a health reform strategy for the U.S. His work on health care is being extended to address the problems of health care delivery in developing countries, in collaboration with Dr. Jim Yong Kim and Dr. Paul Farmer.

In addition to his research, writing, and teaching, Professor Porter serves as an advisor to business, government, and the social sector. He has served as strategy advisor to numerous leading U.S. and international companies, including Caterpillar, Procter & Gamble, Scotts Miracle-Gro, Royal Dutch Shell, and Taiwan Semiconductor. Professor Porter currently serves on the public boards of directors at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals and previously at PTC. Professor Porter also plays an active role in U.S. economic policy with the Executive Branch and Congress, and has led national economic strategy programs in numerous countries.

Professor Porter has founded three major non-profit organizations: The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) in 1994, which addresses economic development in distressed urban communities; the Center for Effective Philanthropy, which creates rigorous tools for measuring foundation effectiveness; and FSG, a leading non-profit strategy firm serving NGOs, corporations, and foundations in the area of creating social value.

Education

Professor Porter received a B.S.E. with high honors in aerospace and mechanical engineering from Princeton University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi. He received an M.B.A. with high distinction from the Harvard Business School, where he was a George F. Baker Scholar, and a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University.

Professor Porter has won numerous awards and honors, including Harvard's David A. Wells Prize in Economics for his research in industrial organization, the Academy of Management’s highest award for scholarly contributions to management, the Adam Smith Award of the National Association of Business Economists, and the John Kenneth Galbraith Medal. He has been elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and other honorary societies. The recipient of twenty honorary doctorates and several national honors, he received the first ever Lifetime Achievement Award from the United States Department of Commerce in 2008 for his contribution to economic development.